Valentyn Porfyrovych Yatsenko (21.05.1937 - 11.10.2024) was an outstanding scientist in the field of medical cybernetics, Doctor of Medicine, Professor, Corresponding Member of the International Academy of Astronautics (Paris), Honored Inventor of the USSR, twice winner of the State Prize of Ukraine in Science and Technology, Honored Worker of Science and Technology of Ukraine.
Valentyn Yatsenko was born in the Far East in the family of a military serviceman. The family returned to Ukraine in 1951, and Valentyn Porfyrovych's life was connected with Ukraine and Kyiv region. In 1954, V.P. Yatsenko entered the medical faculty of the Bogomolets Kyiv Medical Institute. After receiving his diploma, the young surgeon began working at the Myronivka District Hospital in Kyiv Oblast.
In a short time, he managed to master the profession: he performed more than 400 surgical operations, including several successful skin transplants for traumatic injuries, and published his first scientific paper. It was this experience that allowed the young scientist to move to the Laboratory of Organ and Tissue Preservation and Transplantation at the Kyiv Research Institute of Hematology and Blood Transfusion in September 1962. He began painstaking research work that required deep knowledge of morphology. Since 1966, V.P. Yatsenko has been combining research work with teaching: he was elected to the position of assistant professor at the Department of Histology, Cytology and Embryology of the Bogomolets Kyiv Medical Institute.
In 1968, he defended his PhD thesis, and in 1987 - his doctoral dissertation. Under his leadership, unique operations on embryos were performed for the first time in the world, and morphometric studies allowed to establish the patterns of formation of reactive, adaptive and compensatory changes in the peripheral nervous system in ontogeny. In 1987-2003, V.P. Yatsenko headed the staff of the Research Laboratory Center of the Bogomolets National Medical University, which in 10 years became one of the leading scientific units of higher medical institutions of Ukraine. In 1992-1994, as Vice-Rector for International Cooperation at the Bogomolets National Medical University, he coordinated the U.S.-Ukraine Partnership Program, which resulted in the creation of the first Center to Protect Mothers and Children in Ukraine (Kyiv). In 1995, for the first time in the history of NATO, he reported on the achievements of Ukrainian scientists in this field at a meeting of the European Section of Aerospace Medicine (Bonn, Germany). In 1996, V.P. Yatsenko was appointed curator of the scientific direction “Aerospace Medicine”, the purpose of which was to form national and international space programs.
In 2001, he was invited to work at Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute as Head of the Department of Medical Cybernetics and Telemedicine and Dean of the Interuniversity Medical and Engineering Faculty (2001-2011). During ten years, the necessary material and technical base of the faculty was created and new areas of medical and engineering knowledge were launched.
He is a full member of the International Academy of Integrative Anthropology, the International Academy of Pathologists, an academic advisor to the International Academy of Higher Education Sciences, a corresponding member of the Academy of Technological Cybernetics of Ukraine and the International Academy of Astronautics (Paris). V.P. Yatsenko is the author of more than 450 scientific papers, including 3 monographs and 12 inventions. Under his supervision, 2 doctors and 7 candidates of sciences were trained.